Happy Independence Day

I would argue it's not necessarily the creation of a stronger federal government that eroded our rights, but the "General Welfare Clause" that was enabling of the overpower and overreaching state.

 

It wasn't a "federal" government at all, but a national government masquerading as a federal government. From Patrick Henry:

Mr. Chairman ... I rose yesterday to ask a question which arose in my own mind. When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious: The fate of this question and of America may depend on this: Have they said, we, the States? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation: It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing-the expression, We, the people, instead of the States, of America. I need not take much pains to show that the principles of this system are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. Is this a monarchy, like England-a compact between prince and people, with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter? Is this a Confederacy, like Holland-an association of a number of independent states, each of which retains its individual sovereignty? It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely. Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transition, from a Confederacy to a consolidated Government. We have no detail of these great consideration, which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we should recur to a government of this kind. Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is radical in this transition; our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished...

 

Liberty, freedom to chose. The Religious Right is anathema to liberty. We are celebrating Independence, the right to live as we choose, the right to be free of government coercion. That law in Alabama is not a friend of liberty. It is a concrete example in real life of the evil of religious tyranny.

 

We're celebrating independence from a centralized authority. That is what the American revolution was ultimately about.

 

I am familiar with the argument, but it wasn't against a "cabal of aristocrats", it was against those who understood the nation was falling apart under the Confederacy, and that a stronger federal government was needed to keep the nation viable. That's a far cry from saying the anti-federalists saved us from an aristocracy. And again, whatever their fears and prejudices, the essential principle they were both trying to ensure was liberty, i.e., the protection of individual rights.

 

Oh, no, no, no. It was about subordinating the state to moral law, the law of individual rights. There is no inherent evil in "centralized authority", per se, it depends upon what "authority" and "centralized" to do what.

We are not celebrating "independence from centralized authority", we are celebrating liberty over tyranny, the individual as his own King, life to live from the states coercive powers.

From the Declaration:
"The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States."

See, it is not necessarily against document against a centralized authority, which a King, or a Supreme Court, or a Commander-In-Chief might have, as it is the damnation of tyranny and the exaltation of liberty.

 

Yes, it was. The delegates were mandated to refine and improve upon the articles, not to scrap them entirely. It wasn't until one of the delegates from Maryland, Luther Martin, exposed this conspiracy that people became aware of what was happening behind closed doors.

First of all, this is a contradiction in terms. There was no "nation" under the confederacy.

Secondly, nothing was "falling apart" under the confederacy. As Patrick Henry pointed out during the debates:

The Confederation; this same despised Government, merits, in my opinion, the highest encomium: It carried us through a long and dangerous war: It rendered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful nation: It has secured us a territory greater than any European monarch possesses: And shall a Government which has been thus strong and vigorous, be accused of imbecility and abandoned for want of energy?

Again, this is a contradiction in terms. The US was either a federation or a nation. It cannot be both at the same time.

They didn't save us. They failed to stop the constitution. Their only victory was the inclusion of the bill of rights.

The supporters of the constitution may have paid lip service to liberty and individual rights, but their real intention was political consolidation.

 

Who were they declaring their independence from? A centralized government.

 

Jefferson was a boyhood hero of mine. At the local library there was a shelf, maybe a dozen feet wide, that contained all the writings, mostly letters, of Jefferson. I read them all. Currently I have Jefferson's Bible on my bookcase.

Of course the problem you are having is your ideological underpinnings describe liberals as other than they are.

Have you ever read about Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates?

Jefferson was an advocate of free public education. Perhaps the first American to do so.

He also advocated the breaking up of wealth. The progressive tax system that conservatives are so opposed to, was a Jefferson idea. It was intended to limit the growth of wealthy entities, to help ensure his egalitarian vision of America. The recent Republican tax cuts are a very un-Jeffersonian thing to do. Giving the wealthy free reign is something that Jefferson was very much opposed to.

He rejected the idea of Jesus as a god, and it was he, perhaps more than anyone, who established the wall of separation between government and religion. A very liberal position.

 

Jefferson was unequivocal in his support for SMALL government, LOW taxes, and STATE sovereignty. He was also strongly opposed to the national bank.

In other words, he was against everything you believe in.

 

They declared independence from a despotic, tyrant, answerable to no one but himself. That's not a centralized government, that's an Absolute Monarchy, that's absolute power of a tyrant. I do support a centralized government, but one that is limited to protecting the rights of the individual. And, as part of their governing authority, it, at the very least, must be powerful enough to make sure every state lives up to the ideal of liberty, instead of a becoming a collection of a cacophonous, cantankerous political entities that are nothing more than a mishmash of hodgepodge nonsense cooked up by pot-luck politics and puffy paper philosophies.

 

Low taxes for average people, but high taxes for the wealthy.

 

The king was largely a figurehead at that point. Most of the real power resided in the parliament. They, and not the king, were responsible for passing the various laws and taxes which the colonists found so intolerable.

The British monarchy was not an absolute monarchy. And absolute monarchies are a form of centralized government.

Then your professions in support of liberty are ultimately hollow, as centralized government has always been the enemy of liberty.

The federal government is not limited to protecting the rights of the individual. Its powers go far beyond that minimal mandate.

Except America was founded as a collection of independent States.

 

I hope someday you are able to come to appreciate this country and all it's people. Even those who have different ideas and beliefs than yourself. I for one have dislike for some ideas, but not for the individuals who hold them. Diversity of ideas is as important as any other kind of diversity. The freedom this country affords lets that diversity happen.

If you don’t mind me asking, what compels you to attack a post like mine that belittles, attacks, or marginalizes no one?

 

I perfer a federation over a confederation. The confederation would have been an endless succession of wars between the states, over property rights, over mineral rights, over land rights, over boundaries, over game, over trade (talk about your trade wars. This would have been a nightmare), gambling, prostitution, drugs, cigarettes, abortion, incest, infantilism, bestiality, homosexuality, satanism, honey bee pollination, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, Ad infinitum.

Good government requires federal government, but only governing on a very broad macro level.

BTW: That was the argument, right\? Too late to reargue it today, the die has been cast.

 

You keep fixating on one statement Jefferson made about taxing the wealthy at higher rates, as if that defines his entire belief system. But his political philosophy was much larger than just one statement he made about tax rates. In the same letter where he talked about taxing the wealthy at higher rates, he also talked about letting the unemployed cultivate idle land. Is that something you support as well? By the way, if Jefferson was such a huge fan of progressive income taxation, then why didn't he try to make it reality during his presidency?

 

The confederation won this country its independence from the most powerful empire in existence at that time. And were there any wars between the States in the years that followed? All the dangers apprehended by the opponents of the confederation were purely imaginary or wildly exaggerated.

And, no, it is not too late. Because despite the letter of the law, it is clear that the States are always reverting to a confederation, as it is consonant with the natural order.

Biologically speaking, humans are designed by evolution to form SMALL groups. Past a certain point, the group loses its coherence and its identity, rendering any attempt to form a legitimate government around said group impossible. Such a government will always be authoritarian.

 

Jefferson was not an atheist. None of the founders were atheists. They ALL believed in god. Many were skeptical of Christian orthodoxy, but that does not make them atheists.

 

Cleary!

 

I apologize if my conservative beliefs are offensive to you.

 

Not offended, just agreeing with you..

 

So you say, and I say nay. We'll leave it here for another day. But whatever else that may or may not be true, this is an eternal truth: The birth of America set the creative power of the human mind free.

 

America, the supreme independent radical:

”A dictatorship cannot take hold in America today. This country, as yet, cannot be ruled — but it can explode. It can blow up into the helpless rage and blind violence of a civil war. It cannot be cowed into submission, passivity, malevolence, resignation. It cannot be “pushed around.” Defiance, not obedience, is the American’s answer to overbearing authority. The nation that ran an underground railroad to help human beings escape from slavery, or began drinking on principle in the face of Prohibition, will not say “Yes, sir,” to the enforcers of ration coupons and cereal prices. Not yet.” https://courses.aynrand.org/lexicon...il&utm_term=0_3753df5893-c00372b963-289437145

 

A salute to liberty, to Independence Day, to America:

https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2014/07/celebrate-independence-day/

 

Given the US apes the Limeys still (as shown by income distribution and social mobility), shouldn't this day be a lament?